Understanding
by Starkreactor
Summary: Watson saw Sherlock nearly die five times, and during the fifth brush with death he finally understood. Not slash, rated in case. One shot.


I don't know where this came from other than the fact that I love Sherlock and I have a sick mind. Enjoy!

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><p>Sherlock Holmes was trying to kill himself.<p>

That was the only conclusion that Watson could come to, time after time, example after example, the evidence, the facts, were just irrefutable.

The first time Sherlock had over-dosed and Watson had come home to the comatose detective on the couch, he had rolled his eyes in disgust, kicked the needle under the couch in annoyance, and had gone to bed.

It wasn't until morning that Watson began to worry, because his insomniac, constantly moving, constantly irritating flat mate still hadn't moved from his drug induced coma. Come to think of it, Watson didn't remember seeing the young detective even breathe. That simple thought had speared Watson's heart with a wave of panic and fear. What if Sherlock had needed him, and he'd died because Watson had been too annoyed to care?

Watson hadn't registered the shattering as the mug he was holding hit the floor, smashing into a billion shards. All he knew was that he should have put aside their differences.

He also remembers crashing to his knees, fumbling at the detective's neck, only to be greeted by a violent jerk and the putrid smell of vomit as Sherlock came out of his stupor. John stays still for a split second, sick dripping from his chin, before storming off, leaving an almost confused looking Sherlock behind.

The first time Sherlock had nearly drowned was because he refused to do two things- sleep, and get out of the bath. Watson had paced outside of the bathroom door, ruffling his hair to the point of abuse and muttering curses and damnations down upon the insufferable man he was forced to live with, and still the detective refused to budge. At first he had given all sorts of "perfectly logical" reasons for why he wasn't going to get out, but after a while he quite humoring Watson and the only sounds that could be heard was the gentle and barely audible sloshing of water.

Even that ended eventually. Watson, desperately in need of a shower, and trying to decide if busting in the lock and forcing Holmes to get out was worth it, paced even more vehemently. Finally, he shouted a warning that he was "bloody well coming in!" and broke the lock with a violent shove to the door. Watson remembers whipping Sherlock's towel off of the rack and throwing it at him, determined not to see his flat mate naked if he could possibly help it.

Surprised when he didn't even hear the slosh of water that would have had to accompany any movement from Sherlock, Watson turned around, his heart stopping dead at what the saw. Laying in the bathtub, the towel across the lower half of his body and quickly soaking up water, was Sherlock. But he didn't just have part of his body submerged, his entire body was under water. And it looked like he was sleeping.

Watson was once again on his knees, but this time it took a violent jerk and a slap on the face to shock Sherlock into coughing and vomiting up all of the water he'd managed to inhale when he'd fallen asleep. All Watson could register after that incident was the sensation of the wood grained cabinet against his back as he slumped in relief, and the anger laced panic that filled his order to "Get some bloody rest you idiot!"

The first time Watson saw Sherlock get shot was when they were pursuing a criminal about as far away from civilization as they could possibly get. Sherlock had decided that the back woods of goodness knows where was the best place to catch the killer- and, as usual, he was spot on.  
>So was the murderer.<p>

Blood poured from the deep shoulder wound that marred Sherlock's favorite coat and the thin flesh and tissue that kept his lifeblood within his slender frame What seemed like gallons of the precious ruby liquid poured over Watson's hands as he tried desperately to staunch the bleeding, fighting valiantly with Sherlock's increasingly weakening heart to keep the young detective alive.

It was that same heart that Watson had to massage three times before the paramedics got there. And it was Watson's rare blood that they were forced to use because they simply didn't have enough in the ambulance to fill Sherlock's tapped veins.

All Watson could do the entire ride was sit next to his friend, unaware of the piercing sensation as the needle invaded a large brachial vein, transferring precious life from the Doctor to the detective, and pray to God that Sherlock wouldn't die.

It was a miracle he survived. And All Sherlock could say when he woke was "He got away."

The first time Watson saw Sherlock suffocate, was when the detective smothered himself with a plastic bag intentionally.

Watson should have seen it coming, he really should have, but at the time he was busy worrying about a critical patient that he was in charge of at the hospital and couldn't be bothered to watch Sherlock 24/7 to make sure the unthinking genius didn't injure himself. He should have seen it coming because Sherlock's latest case involved a young woman who'd been strangled by a plastic bag and duct tape and nearly raped, and she'd given a rather garbled, confused, and teary description of the event. Sherlock refused to write off her testimony as one too emotionally confused to be used and instead argued that her story told them everything they needed to know; the just needed to see things from her perspective.

"Literally, apparently." John cursed as he pried the tape from Sherlock's throat. He'd returned home after an excruciating shift to find Sherlock passed out on his bed, his breath coming in useless pants as his taxed lungs tried desperately to pull oxygen from air that was doing nothing but poisoning his blood with carbon dioxide. John noticed through his severe annoyance and badly hidden worry that this was the very same state they had recovered the girl in. His fingers finally won the battle and he tore the bag free, tilting Sherlock's head back and holding him steady as he gasped and choked on desperately needed air. He sat on the bed behind Sherlock, holding the detective's wrist with one hand, his forehead with the other, forcing the gasping man to lay against his chest and keep his head back and airway open. Watson forced himself to breathe regularly and deeply, muttering to Sherlock to do the same. Eventually the detective's breathing slowed down and he sat up, Watson reluctantly letting his wrist go. His pulse was still very fast.

"What did you do that for?" John finally exploded, adrenaline and a clear head giving way to anger. "You could have died- again!"

"I needed to know the exact state of mind the girl was working with when she was taking in her attacker." Sherlock said, as though it was perfectly obvious and John was daft for asking. "The fear she felt because of the intended rape is not hard to imagine, but the state of an oxygen deprived brain was one that needed to be re-created."

"But what if I hadn't found you? I was at the hospital, anything could have happened!"

"Nonsense, I timed your return perfectly, I ensured that by the time you found me I would be in the exact state of depravation that the girl was. It worked beautifully, thank you John." He smiled. "I was right you know, she did tell us everything we needed to know."

John clenched his jaw in fury and said nothing.

Sherlock Holmes was trying to kill himself. But for the life of him John couldn't understand why. Were the puzzles, the thrills, the changes in perspectives, the perverse pursuits of knowledge really worth all of that to Sherlock? It was apparent to John, as he packed more heating pads around Sherlock's hypothermic body that yes, taking drugs to see a new side of things, drowning because lack of sleep let him see something no-one else had seen, bleeding in pursuit of a criminal, suffocating in order to reach the most primitive level of sympathy for someone, and falling through the ice of a raging river in order to stop a serial killer was all worth it.

Because Sherlock absolutely didn't want to die. He loved life, that's why he went to great lengths to protect it. That was also why he pushed his to the very brink, because to him, puzzles were life, and there was no greater puzzle or thrill than to push limits.

And Watson? Well, Watson stuck around helping the idiot keep on his chaotic journey because secretly, he wished he could see the things Sherlock saw. He wished he could live his life so recklessly. And through Sherlock, maybe someday he could.


End file.
